Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(96)

The room, with its high ceiling, pastel walls, and custom cherry cabinetry, is large and airy enough to seem bright and cheerful even on this gray, rainy morning.

“Here—have a seat.” Randi pulls out a chair, and Allison can’t help but pick up on a weirdly stiff, formal undercurrent in the air.

She sits at the big round table and stares at the basket of apples in the center of it. “Thank you,” she says, “for taking such good care of the kids while I was gone. They said you got them Cap’n Crunch.”

Randi waves away the gratitude with her left hand, and her enormous diamond anniversary ring catches the light.

She’s so lucky, Allison finds herself thinking absurdly, to be married to Ben. Ben didn’t come with the baggage of a failed first marriage and a dead first wife. Ben isn’t under a veil of suspicion in a murder case.

But of course, Allison doesn’t want to be married to anyone but Mack. She loves Mack, and this is all just a huge misunderstanding, and any second now he’s going to be back where he belongs, with her and the kids. Then they’ll be able to figure out their next move before whoever really did kill Phyllis and Zoe sets his sights on them.

“Would you rather have coffee?” Randi asks, gesturing at the half-full pot on the counter. “It’s already made.”

“I’ll just take tea, thanks.”

“I figured. It’ll be easier on your stomach. Is it still bothering you?”

“A little. I’ll be fine. Is Ben here?”

Randi hesitates, then nods. “He’ll be down soon. I told him you were back. He was just going to jump in the shower, I think.”

And he’s not in any hurry to talk to me, Allison realizes, reading between the lines. Maybe Randi isn’t, either.

Do they actually believe Mack could be guilty?

Do I?

Watching her friend fill a red Le Creuset teakettle and set it on the enormous six-burner stove, Allison tries to see things from her perspective, and Ben’s.

They’ve known Mack for years—much longer than Allison has, even—and they adore him. But, faced with evidence that seems to link him to a pair of murders, surely they’re having second thoughts about welcoming him into their home.

Maybe they’re even wondering whether he could have been responsible for the murders ten years ago.

Maybe I should be wondering that, too.

It seems preposterous now to even consider that Mack, reeling from an imminent divorce and a wife missing in a terrorist attack, could have killed Kristina Haines and Marianne Apostolos . . . and Jerry Thompson’s mother? That makes no sense.

But . . .

At the trial, she recalls, an expert witness, a psychiatrist, testified that a catastrophic event like September 11 could trigger violence in a person already on the brink of a mental breakdown. That might have been what happened to Jerry Thompson, or . . .

Mack?

The truth is, it wasn’t out of the question in Allison’s mind ten years ago, when she barely knew him—and found herself wondering whether he might have known Kristina better than he was letting on.

Of course, she quickly dismissed her suspicions. She had seen Jerry Thompson creeping around the building the night Kristina was killed, and . . .

And you were so sure he was responsible, because of that?

He was the handyman. He was always around.

Yes, he gave Kristina the creeps, but that doesn’t mean he killed her, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean he was the hooded intruder who attacked Allison in her apartment.

Could that have been Mack?

She quickly dismisses the question as ludicrous.

Having turned on the flame beneath the teakettle, Randi asks, “Are you hungry? Can I make you some toast?”

“No, thanks, I’m—”

“Don’t say fine, Allison. I know you’re not fine.”

Randi doesn’t tack on her usual “no arguments,” but Allison isn’t about to offer one. Randi’s right; she’s far from fine.

“Tell me what’s going on.” Her friend sits across from her at the round table.

“I’m not even sure. They think Mack might have had something to do with it because someone made a call to Nathan Jennings’s phone from our house. But it wasn’t Mack.”

There’s a long pause before Randi asks, with obvious reluctance, “You’re sure?”

“I’m positive! He’s my husband! I know him and I know he’s not capable of this.”

She waits for Randi—who not so long ago reminded Allison that you never really know what someone else is thinking; Randi the self-proclaimed expert bullshit detector—to agree with her that Mack is incapable of murder.

But Randi doesn’t say it. She doesn’t say anything, just sits staring at the basket of apples with her chin resting in her hand, like she’s waiting for Allison to go on.

Allison isn’t sure what else to say—or what not to say.

She doesn’t dare admit to anyone, not even her best friend, that she herself may be harboring the slightest shred of doubt about Mack’s innocence.

It’s not that she doesn’t trust Randi . . .

Oh hell, yes it is.

How can she trust her friend when right now, she doesn’t even trust her own husband?

“Allie . . .”